Thursday, January 04, 2007

Randomiser #4: 4 January 2007

Today's song: "King of NY", AutomatorThis is from Revolutions 01, according to my iPod, and from memory, I think that's a cover CD that came out with long-defunct music magazine Select many years ago. (Select was great. Why can't we have a magazine like that today? I'd buy it.)

Automator is, of course, Dan the Automator, who was involved in the first Gorillaz album and made the fabulous Deltron 3030 album, as well as a whole load of other records I don't own because hip hop's not really my genre. There's a load of random stuff which I only added to this thing to liven up the Shuffle playlist, and to be honest, I think this is one of them. But it's a damned good record, this. I should get more of Dan the Automator's records. I've liked everything I've heard from him. (Oh, except that Handsome Boy Modelling School project, which didn't do much for me. Forgot about that.)

Also:

- Fox cancels The O.C. I haven't watched it in over a year, and apparently I'm not the only one. It's a classic example of a show that would probably have been remembered more fondly if it had been cancelled after two seasons, or maybe even one. The O.C. was basically a return to the escapist wouldn't-it-be-great-to-be-rich-in-a-nice-climate shows that they used to make in the eighties, except with a slightly improved social conscience, a scaling back of the bling compared with Dynasty (villains excepted), and better taste in music.

The show ran into problems in two ways. First, they'd somehow ended up with Ryan and Marissa as their lead characters, even though neither was an especially compelling performer, and both were regularly acted off the screen by the B-characters - especially Rachel Bilson, who was fantastic playing the stock "shallow cheerleader with hidden heart of gold" character, and actually made her multi-dimensional. Hell, Peter Gallagher was a more watchable screen presence than Mischa Barton half the time.

Second, they completely ran out of stories. They'd already done all their key romance plots in season one and found themselves with nowhere to go, except breaking up and repeating the cycle. (Season two of Green Wing had the same problem, but tried to pass it off as experimental comedy by being incredibly blatant about it and hoping that people would think it was ironic.) The O.C. must be the only show ever to do a lesbian angle primarily because they desperately needed to find some new pairings.

But it was a great little show for a season and a half, and it could probably have lasted a lot longer if they hadn't paid off all the main storylines so quickly. Shame, really.